12.31AM, Saturday, Dec. 5th
400 West 37th Street, New York
Date With Mr. Right (2)
I woke up this morning, with a massive headache. It took me a while to realize why I was feeling all panicky inside. My Senior Project…
I leapt up, and switched on my laptop. It was agonizingly slow. When I opened the file, I almost cried. It was due so soon… I had to do more work on it… I had to schedule another date with Blane… Reluctantly, I looked through my room, shifting away piles of books and underwear. It was next to the flowers Blane had given me. I cussed. I needed to buy a second vase. The stupid roses he bought me before wouldn’t die already.
“Blane?” I said, trying my best to sound perky and happy – the kind of annoying preppy girl all guys liked. My vocal cords stung from speaking in such a high register. Damn, it was tired pretending to be someone else. “How’ve you been?”
“I was so worried! What happened to you, last night?”
I closed my eyes. Crap. I forgot about that. “Uh, just my…cousin playing an un-funny joke on me.” I changed the subject, before my bad lying skills got me discovered. “I was wondering…what are you doing today?” Blane was so sweet, to be worried about me. I tried to feel happy about that, but it was impossible.
“Uh, Art class…Nothing afterwards. What do you want to do?”
“Maybe we could get something to eat, and I could show you my side of Manhattan. The non-posh-French-restaurant side. The greasy burger and chips side.”
“Oh… I don’t know.”
I rolled my eyes. He was a snob. God.
“How about we just meet at Art class, and talk about it later?”
“Sure,” he said.
I hung up, sighing. I then scrolled down my phonebook, to a different name. Oscar. It rung a couple times, before he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Oscar. What’s up? Didn’t see you leave at the Dance last night. Why did you go?”
“Oh…I, uh, wasn’t feeling so good.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned. It must be big. Oscar was the type of guy who was impervious to anything – cuts, bruises, and sickness. Almost invincible. Okay, maybe not invincible, but definitely not the type of guy who complained a lot. If he was mentioning it now, it must’ve been bad. “Do you need me to come over, and look after you? I could skip Art class…”
Secretly, I was quite glad to have an excuse to miss Art class. I couldn’t face Blane. Even though I’d just called him and everything, there was something about him that made me want to fall asleep for a long time.
“No, no! I couldn’t do that! I mean, you’re so busy, with your project and all…”
I bit my lip. He was right. I was meant to be busy.
“Okay, Oscar. But you better get yourself something good to eat, and stay in bed.”
“Will do.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
***
5.03PM, Saturday, Dec. 5th
1395 Lexington Avenue, New York
I rushed into the class. The teacher there gave me a dirty look as I settled into my seat next to Blane.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hello,” I replied, opening my pencil case hurriedly. I pulled out two paintbrushes, and grabbed the palette on the table, quickly squeezing out some paint into it. I sat down on my stool, and stared at the thing we were meant to paint.
A paintbrush, and some paint.
Is it me, or is that slightly ironic?
“So you say you want to go somewhere afterwards?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, slightly disorientated. I was dabbing paint onto the blank canvas. “Oh, yeah. Uh…where do you want to go?”
“Central Park, maybe?”
I froze. Oh, God. Did he know? About what I did last night? No, he couldn’t…there was no way he could know… definitely not…
“Sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Let’s go…what do you want to do there?”
“Feed the pigeons? Eat ice-cream? What do you want to do?”
I mentally rolled my eyes. Blane, this is not some sort of bad romantic comedy. Why are you so cheesy?
“Sure!” I cooed, pretending to be delighted. Girls were meant to love animals, right? “I love those cute little pigeons!”
He smiled, like he’d just bestowed upon me a great act of kindness. In reality, I hate pigeons. I never got over that one time, when I was five, and a massive big pigeon flapped in my face, and scared the crap out of me.
At least Jake wasn’t original. He wouldn’t make me shove bread into those beaky little bastards.
***
7.03PM, Saturday, Dec. 5th
Central Park, New York
I am bored out of my mind, again. Blane is rambling on, like always. He’s telling me the most boring stories ever. Like this time he found a banana that looked nice. Then he opened it up, and the banana was bruised. If I had a banana right now, I would shove it into his mouth.
It was winter, yet Blane still seemed to think ice-creams were appropriate. It was actually so cold, the ice-creams wouldn’t melt.
I stared at the big tree last night, which Jake and I climbed. I could feel my cheeks heat up from the memory of that moment… Jake was so sweet. But no. I couldn’t like him. I had to like Mr. Right.
I turned back to Blane, who was still rambling on about India.
I hate life.
I got out my notepad, which I was writing notes in. I’d noticed that during my date with Jake, I’d written no notes. Mainly because I was laughing too hard to hold a pen. But with Blane…suddenly all I want to do is homework. I was that bored. Is it normal to want to stab your own eardrums with a biro, just to stop the insufferable pain of listening to your boyfriend?
Tip: If you get bored of your Date, kill him.
Bad tip? I know. If you killed your date, then you would have find some way to dispose his body. And no one wants that kind of stress.
Shall I write down my favorite words? Abyssopelagic. Sluice. Susurrus.
“And so anyway, the guy said, “This is the Taj Mahal”. My friend, just stared at me, and said, ‘What’s the Taj Mahal’! Can you believe that?”
Self-immolation. Self-slaughter. Self-destruct.
“And I said, ‘That’s the Taj Mahal’! Isn’t that just the best story?”
Suicide. Suicide. Suicide.
SUICIDE!
“Summer?” he asked. “Are you paying attention?”
“Huh?” I looked up from my pad. “Yeah, sure. You were talking about the Taj Mahal. It was… funny.”
About as funny as strangling a puppy.
“Yeah. If you liked that story, I have thousands more…”
“No!” I said, a little too hastily. “I mean, uh, save them for next time. I have to go right now…My Mom was… uh… put in prison… for… uh… killing someone… that I have to… attend to.”
I was always a bad liar. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to think I was a maniac, and laughed.
“You’re so cute,” he said, ruffling my hair. What did that mean? Did he find my Mom killing someone cute? And what the hell was the hair-ruffle? “Sure, I’ll see you next time.”
“Yeah…okay…” If I ever recover from that hour-long blast of boredom.
He said bye to me, and I walked out of the park. I threw the uneaten ice-cream into the bin. Suddenly, my phone binged. It was Jake.
“What you doing?” Jake texted.
A small smile lit my lips. He always made me feel better…
“Feeling awful…bad day,” I texted back.
“What’s wrong?” was the immediate reply. “Do you need me to come cheer you up?”
I thought about it. If I just had another date with “Mr. Right”, I should probably schedule another one with “Mr. Right Now”.
“How about tomorrow?” I thumbed onto my phone. “We could go on a date.”
As I waited for his reply, I glared at a flying pigeon. It was probably off to scare another innocent person’s childhood again.
“How about we go to a theme park?” he texted.
I smiled. I haven’t gone in a long time.
“Sure,” I replied.
***
Author's Note: Didn't do the end of chapter extract of her book...ah well. I will next time, promise.
By now, you probably hate Blane. He is very boring. I am bored just writing about him. He is based on a real character, someone who is also so boring I want to kill myself whenever I talk to them.
He is based on the voice in my head.
Kidding! OF COURSE I DONT HEAR VOICES IN MY HEAD!! THAT WOULD MAKE ME CRAZY! AND I'M NOT CRAZY!!! AHAHAHHAHHA!!!
LOL.
Anyway, Vomment!